Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the most difficult to treat, chronic mental disorders, and is extremely costly to the mental health and medical systems. Studies have found that BPD individuals represent a substantial portion of those using mental health services: 8-11% of outpatient mental health patients, and 14-20% of psychiatric inpatients. Linehan (1993) has developed and tested a promising treatment for BPD, Dialectical Behavior therapy (DBT). DBT has been demonstrated to reduce treatment drop-outs, parasuicidal acts and number of hospital days relative to treatment as usual (Linehan, Armstrong, Suarez, Allmon, and Heard, 1991). Informed by a biosocial theory of BPD, DBT is a comprehensive treatment model including individual psychotherapy and group skills training, with an emphasis on learning new skills to deal with intense, negative affect. The aim of this project is to develop a mechanism for more widely disseminating DBT Skills Training, while maintaining the integrity of the treatment protocol. Specifically, the applicant plans to determine empirically whether a high-quality videotape format effectively accomplishes the skills acquisition function of DBT, in order to then market such a training component of DBT in a videotape format. A videotape of Dr. Linehan teaching two emotion regulation skills will be developed. This evaluation component of Phase I will evaluate skills knowledge acquisition in 25 BPD patients who have viewed the video, relative to a control group who will view a video on relaxation training. In Phase II, videotape versions of two skills modules will be developed, and the evaluation component will be expanded to examine generalization of skills and therapist satisfaction. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: Should data support the feasibility and efficacy of videotapes as medium for learning DBT skills among individuals, efforts will be made to further develop a whole series of tapes of all DBT skills for sale to therapists and community mental health agencies for patient and therapist use.